If you want to be able to access a line of credit quickly and easily whenever you have a real need to do so, you need to have a good credit rating. Unfortunately, many of us have a less than stellar credit rating because of problems when the economy went into a downturn. This means that a lot of us really need to improve our credit scores if we want to be more financially capable in the future.
Boosting one’s credit score is never easy, but it isn’t exactly rocket science either. If your credit score currently isn’t as high as you would like it to be, here are some simple steps you can take to start changing your situation:
Check Your Credit Report
You’d be surprised just how many errors there are on people’s credit reports, so before you do anything else, check your report for any factual errors and fight to have them corrected, and you’ll almost certainly boost your rating.
Pay Down Credit Card Debt
If your credit cards are maxed out, or fast approaching it, one of the best things you can do to cut down your debt is to deal with these balances. You see, when it comes to your credit score, using too much or too little of your available credit can negatively affect your rating. Ideally, you should be using no more than 30 percent of the credit available to you at any one time, so do what you can to bring your credit card debts down for an instant boost to your credit rating.
Consolidate Your Debts
Having lots of debts all over the place is obviously not an ideal situation to be in at any stage of your life, which is why, if you’re finding it difficult to cope, dealing with missed payments and struggling to stay afloat, you should take a look at the best personal loan options to help with credit card debt and other expenses. Using a personal loan to consolidate all of your debt will mean that you only have one manageable monthly payment to deal with instead of multiple ones, which makes life easier, helps you to pay on time and thus pushes up your credit rating.
Automate Your Bill Payments
If you often forget to pay your bills on time, this will have a hugely negative impact on your credit score. So, if it is at all possible to do so, set up automatic payments for all your recurring bills, so that you’ll never miss one again and your credit score will no longer take a hit because of your forgetfulness.
Leave Old Debt on Your Report
Some people have this weird notion that if new lenders are able to see old settled debts on their credit report, they will judge them unfavorably, so they do what they can to have it expunged from the record. This is nothing short of madness because creditors like to see a credit history, where the debt has been successfully paid off without any problems. It will actually make you more desirable, not less, so leave it where it is!
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